Writings, pics, music, arts and difficult conversations

Curtain Raiser

Hate Won’t Tear Us Apart, Colltalers

A series of deadly nightmares has visited Americans once again in the past days. And some have progressed exactly as the script of racial violence and hate President Trump has been reciting at his rallies. Will he honorably own them? Don’t hold your breath.
Meanwhile, surprising no one, Brazil’s bid farewell to its young democracy yesterday. A sound majority put Jair Bolsonaro, an ex-army captain, in charge of leading it back to the past, with carte blanche to turn this vibrant nation into a gun-happy backwater.
The cold-blooded execution of two black people in Kentucky, and the horrific mass murder at a Pittsburgh synagogue: the two sinister bookends to the arrest in Florida of yet another home-grown terrorist, who’d sent explosive packages to top Democrats.
Three perpetrators, all anti-Semites and ardent president supporters, with devilish intent: to silence his critics, intimidate the press, and target a racial minority. Whether these tragedies will impact the Nov. 6 elections is unclear. But progressive forces can’t wait for the Democratic Party to lead: Americans must call them for what they really are: hate rhetoric turned into action.
These loyal fools with a lot in common felt empowered to do the president’s bidding. They may have acted alone but rather than isolated, they’ve responded to a call, repeated by Trump on Twitter and at his public speeches. They felt encouraged to wage holy war against fellow Americans, who dare to disagree with the moral downward spiral the U.S. has taken since 2016.
The man and woman shot to death while being black at a grocery store, the 11 members of the Tree of Life Congregation, killed while being Jewish, and the 14 prominent leaders and politicians who could have been assassinated along an unknown number of circumstantial victims, compose a terrifying portrait of life in America, circa 2018. Race and social liberalism are in mortal risk.
It’s also stomach churning to see once again guns, including an assault rifle, used for racial violence. They were present at the temple massacre and at the store shooting, while the bomb-maker fanatic has demonstrated another level of rage and obsession.
Failing to link White House’s hate speech and the violence of the supremacist movement it has inspired all but equals condoning the barbarism of our current state of affairs. It also misjudges the potential for even more horror and loss of political autonomy.
Naturally, republicans and conservatives have jumped to the administration’s aid. They will shamefully attempt to minimize the attacks, and quickly switch to their hypocritical ‘thoughts and prayers’ default mode for dealing with national grief at crisis time.
As for those who can’t quite believe the disturbingly warped reality hateful words often lead to, a check on history books is most advisable. For rage and death get easily loosened up when the national discourse is polarized into the ‘us versus them’ quagmire. Tyrants often take advantage of ancient ethnic and tribal conflicts to seize and consolidate power, and we’re way passed the time to be shocked, shocked by how come this is actually happening in America. Such mode of domination, prone to displays of bloody ‘loyalty’ by deranged bottom feeders and sycophants, has happened many times before. It’s also a exports-ready model.
Which brings us once more to Brazil, before we too close the book and subscribe to the lowest form of self-sabotaging

adopted out of despair: follow the most basic denominator at the root of all hatred, and exploit it to the service of a powerful elite at the top; maybe some scraps will fall your way. For it’ll be a long, dark night for Brazilians who would never betray their principles.
In the end, the thousands who took the streets of Brazil and other countries in recent weeks, led by women, artists, LGBT, black and indigenous communities, plus countless manifestos and letters of support signed by notable political leaders, intellectuals, creators, civil organizations, worker unions, societies and many others, were not enough, or too late, to prevent Bolsonaro win.
It was also evident how the ‘Trump template’ can be successfully applied to other nations and, in the case of Brazil, its architect himself, ultra nationalist Steve Bannon, was an adviser and the most notorious endorser of the captain’s political inklings.
Now that another candidate got elected by spitting out a toxic mix of radicalism and intolerance, of misogyny and prejudice, the formula is officially approved as a format to turn democracies, old and strong, young and vulnerable, into Big Brother regimes.
Soon, someone like Bolsonaro and Trump, both prone to invoke faith and religion, even without being part of either, or law and order, despite having never served, or being kicked out in disgrace from the army, is bound to rise and rule using their playbook.
A predictable escalation of incidents involving racial and religious hatred notwithstanding, these are but symptoms of a much more disturbing trend: the revival of a global Fascism, this time irradiating from the core of the world’s most powerful nation.
More than hoping against hope that this is but a momentary lapse of reason, despite its immediately devastating consequences on global civil rights and individual freedom, there’s now a concrete new reason as for why the coming U.S. elections are so important: they’re an opportunity to show we’re still determined to put a stop on the GOP’s, and global right-wing’s, power grab.
If, for that, we’ll need to connect the dots and link the recent tragedies to the fascistic rhetoric coming out of the White House, so be it. The president must be finally held accountable to so much division he’s sown in our midst, and for his profound betrayal of American values of tolerance and inclusion. Supporting tyrants is definitely not the example that it’s our duty to give the world.
As it’s evident in Brazil and elsewhere, it’s no longer credible to expect that the 30+% fans of discriminatory regimes will regain their lost mind any time soon. And we definitely count with the decent, good people who always choose the way that’ll promote and support the most people, specially the vulnerable. What’s crucial to conquer is that middle, grey ground, of the ‘undecided.’
There lives, and let’s here be blunt, a spineless class of people, pretending not to have a clue about what’s at stake, who at the first threat to their safe position, run and seek shelter in the shadow of the powerful. As a Jewish scientist once said, the world is dangerous not by those who do evil, but those who do nothing. Einstein witnessed the tragic consequences of such foolishness.
History is repeating itself again, to paraphrase yet another Jew. But even when Marx called the second time around a farce, no one was laughing. It’s easy to forget, or be ignorant about, the historical record. In the meantime, they’re winning and shouldn’t. We must not stand pat, and let their beheading games begin. Let’s fight and never go back to that dark past. Happy Halloween. WC

WILD HORSES

Harrowing Ride

Audio Portrait

East Village in the 80s through my answering machine. Greeting messages, friendly voices, a recorded ecstasy and many tongues were left on tape for me to remember. Now I'm sharing it all with you. Enjoy it.

World Cup
in S.Africa.
Remember?

Joyce's 'Ulysses'
as Graphic Novel

The illustration above is one of the plates of "Ulysses 'Seen,'" a high quality graphic adaptation by Robert Berry of James Joyce's masterpiece "Ulysses."
For those who never got around to read the long, uninterrupted, controversial June 16, 1904, conversation by Molly Bloom, Stephen Dedalus and others, that the great Irishman envisioned in Dublin, you won't have a better chance to do it.
And for those already familiar with the book form, it's another opportunity to appreciate this enduring work of literature through the eyes of a contemporary artist.
In either case, a few pints of Guinness to go along with it are absolutely optional.

EPITAPH

"Alone we are born, and die alone;
Yet see the red-gold cirrus
Over snow-mountain shine.
Upon the upland road
Ride easy, stranger:
Surrender to the sky
Your heart of anger."

FALSE ALARM

Desmodus

The Artist

Father & Son

Fireball Over Midwest Skies

COLL POLL

The Numbers Are In

Voting stations are closed at this time. The final tally was 13 votes in favor of Coll getting a cellphone and two against it.

MAY 19th IS COLL'S BIRTHDAY & HE WON!

This decision is final. Thank you all for participating. Coll's most heartfelt gratitude goes for the kind souls who voted in favor. For the two heartless hacks who were against it (you know who you are), a SWAP team graciously volunteered to pay you a visit first thing tomorrow morning. Stop by the front desk to request a waiver to present to your teacher, boss or dominatrix. Call your mother. Enroll in a charitable cause. Volunteer at a Soup Kitchen. Run to raise funds for Aids. This is our last broadcast. Please tune in for future promotions. This tape will self-destroy in five seconds. No further ado will come out of nothing. (5/19/2010)

MOTION

CLUTCH

Off-Key Note

Writings, pictures, videos, comments & more, edited by a writer, musician and world citizen living in downtown
New York City.
Acting gigs, a few screenplays and endless clashes with reality.
Brazilian by birth, multilingual by chance, cash strapped as usual.
Agnostic but partial to great soccer. Unmoved by sunsets, campaign speeches, the religious pull or any sure bet.Poor vision and lower back pain. A bottomless pit for a navel. Blue, cats, 9, left, heat and outer space.
Common ground needs not to apply. Not accepting advice at this time.

Naked City

“In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock.”

Slideshow

LAST WORDS

* - "Let's do it."GARY GILMORE, executed by firing squad in Jan. 17, 1977, by the State of Utah, for murdering a model clerk. He was the last person to be executed in the U.S. in that fashion until June 18, 2010, when Ronnie Lee Gardner was shot to death also by Utah.

Norman Mailer wrote "The Executioner's Song," which he called a "true story," based on the relationship he established with Gilmore, a confessed killer, and the state of affairs of the U.S. in the 1970s. The book doesn't shy away from the horrific facts surrounding his murderous spree, but in a way it tones them down and shifts the focus to the society's possible role as a fertile ground for such deviant behavior.